Blog Stats

From point duty to the ranks of the ‘brave 600’: one policeman’s dangerous career move

The 13th Light Dragoons at the Battle of Balaclava (1854) by John Charlton

Yesterday I wrote about Police Constable Wallington and the problems he encountered as one of the new ‘Peelers’ to hit the streets of London after 1829. Many members of the new force either left or were dismissed in the first year of the Metropolitan Police for corruption, disorderly conduct or because the pressure of the job was too great. The difficulties these new law enforcers faced did not fade away quickly and the police continued to be resented by large parts of the public (wealthy and poor) and had to fight hard to establish themselves as an accepted part of British society.

Charles Bailey was one of those that clearly found that either the strains of the job or discovered that the unsocial hours and dreary repetitive nature of the work was not for him.

In August 1840 he had been detailed to stand on fixed point duty at 2.30 in the afternoon in Camden Town. PC Bailey (74S) was supposed to stand watching out for ‘ominous and cab irregularities’ until 9 o’clock at night. This was, I understand from Neil Bell’s excellent study of the Victorian police in the 1880s, an unpopular task. The officer was not supposed to move from his spot until he was relieved by another policeman.

Yet when sergeant Gladmen (18S) checked on the constable at 2.45 he wasn’t there. Gladman was forced to position a replacement there in his stead. PC Bailey had completely disappeared.

When he was tracked down it was discovered that the policeman had quit his job and joined the army. Bailey had swapped his swallow tailed blue coat and tall hat for the much more glamorous uniform of the 13th Light Dragoons. The sergeant and his superintendent were not impressed and had no inkling of the officer’s intentions. As a result (former) PC Bailey was summoned before the Marylebone magistrate and asked to explain himself.

All that Bailey would say was that he was sorry but he had already enlisted before he went on duty. Presumably he felt unable or thought it unnecessary to inform his station sergeant of his new career. In court he did get some support from his new sergeant (this time from the Light Dragoons) who confirmed his appointment and asked the magistrate for clemency. The Marylebone justice fined the constable £10 for his dereliction of duty and because the new Dragoon didn’t have the money to pay he was sent to prison by default.

This was an odd switch of career for the time; it was probably more common for former soldiers to join the police, as we saw with George Walters, a hero of the Crimean who ended up policing a London park. However, perhaps for PC Bailey being asked to stand and watch (not even direct) traffic was just not what he had signed up for and the temptation to join the army and see the world was just too attractive.

The 13th had seen service in the Peninsula and at Waterloo and would go on to see action in the Crimean. If Bailey was still serving in the Dragoons in October 1854 as it lined up on the right flank of the Light Brigade at the battle of Balaclava I wonder if he wished himself back on point duty in Camden rather than facing the Russian guns, ‘to the left of them’, ‘to the right of them’ and ‘in front of them’.